


extraordinary, to the commonplace

by phantomreviewer



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: (erring towards angst), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Depression - implied, Fluff and Angst, Les Amis are co-dependant, M/M, Miscommunication, Multi, Oblivious Enjolras, Past Abuse - in passing, Self-Esteem Issues, Ugly!Grantaire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-17 04:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1373917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomreviewer/pseuds/phantomreviewer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Enjolras has always held with the importance of truth. But where Enjolras’ truth lies in his words Grantaire’s lies in his actions. And both are subjective according to audience and intention. Enjolras thinks that he’s beginning to compartmentalise his own truth, and the shape of his world that inexplicably has Grantaire trapped within its orbit, but he is nowhere close to understanding Grantaire himself.</i>
</p><p>In which Enjolras is beautiful, and Grantaire is not. And this doesn't matter up until when it does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	extraordinary, to the commonplace

**Author's Note:**

> That Grantaire is canonically ugly as sin/"inordinately homely" is very important to me, and this fic has been in progress for at least 10 months just with the inspiration of writing something about Grantaire as a less than beautiful person. And I'm finally happy with it.
> 
> The title comes from the Marquis de Sade's **_The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings._**
> 
> _“Beauty belongs to the sphere of the simple, the ordinary, whilst ugliness is something extraordinary, and there is no question but that every ardent imagination prefers in lubricity, the extraordinary to the commonplace.”_
> 
> Also a shout out has to go to Karol who have been teased with snippets of this fic for months, and all of those snippets have been out of order so I'm sure she has no idea what's going on here.
> 
> There wasn't anyone available to beta, but it's been proof read.
> 
> Enjoy.

“Roll up, roll up ladies, gentlemen and indiscriminate others, come and meet the freak show. To your left you will find the _flexible_ MonsieurDeCourfeyrac, with his spine of rubber, performing the most indecent of gymnastic acts, and yours for the night! And to compare for the evening; the devil’s own child, see how ugly he is, hide from his visage, marvel at his mismatched eyes and his crooked face, gawk in gratitude that you are not burdened with such horrors…”

Grantaire has one leg up on his chair, and is rolling his arms around in what would be an extravagant display of grace where he not several pints short of sober, and were anyone other than Courfeyrac paying him the slightest bit of attention.

 “Oh do shut up Grantaire, you’re meant to be my wingman here, you know, supporting me and helping to shift focus _onto_ me, making me look good or-”

“Get drunk. Or to get drunk.”

And he punctuates his statement to take a swig from the bottle in front of him. There’s almost definitely a hipflask somewhere about his person, but no-one’s got close enough to find it. Not even Courfeyrac.

“I think that you’re managing that well enough yourself mate.”

And Courfeyrac is right, the evening hasn’t been exactly successful for either of them; but Grantaire has never needed must persuading to accompany any of his friends anywhere, and when Courfeyrac had mentioned The Barricade, with its low lighting and cheap stout, Grantaire had almost outpaced him there.

His enthusiasm had waned and waxed over the course of the evening, and only once Courfeyrac’s attempted paramours had sipped their drinks and giggled their way into and out of shy-yet-messy kisses had Grantaire stopped brooding over the collection of glasses that he had gathered, and his wicked smile had cracked across his face. Grantaire’s smile was something that you had to get used too; it was too much like something broken.

For a moment Courfeyrac had wanted to say something to Grantaire, something deep and meaningful. But he himself had had just a little too much to drink, and the look in Grantaire’s hooded eyes turned from unreadable to laughter, and then he’d stood and kicked up his leg onto the chair that he’d just vacated.

Courfeyrac hadn’t taken anyone home that night; other than sharing the taxi to the end of Grantaire’s road before kicking him out into the drizzle of the morning- “I’ll see you at the Corinthe later then?” “Fuck off.”- but it hadn’t exactly been an unpleasant evening. There had certainly been worse.

Grantaire was at the Corinthe before Courfeyrac that evening, and from the way that he was slumped on his chair, with a half empty bottle of the house red in front of him, he’d been there for a while. He was much of a fixture around the Corinthe and the other various bars and cafés that Les Amis used that he was barely spared a glance by the other regulars. His easy laugh and his propensity to buy in bulk and not make _too_ much trouble endeared him to the proprietors in ways that wouldn’t be expected at first glance.

They did not, unfortunately, endear him to Enjolras in the same way.

Enjolras had been doing his damnedest not to look in Grantaire’s direction as he spoke, but at Grantaire’s groan he turned sharply to the older man with a scowl.

“Urgh, turn it down Enjolras. You’re too bright, just the sight of you is burning me. You’re there, forever in my retinas, scowling at me and telling me to ‘put the bottle down’ and it’s not that I don’t appreciate having you on tap like that, because you must have looked in a mirror recently. I mean, wow, no one here can believe that you just fall out of bed looking so divine, so, like I’m eternally grateful for the sentiment, but just for now, hush?”

Enjolras’ retort was somewhat cut off by the blush that he denied was spreading up his sharp cheekbones.

Cosette giggled.

“I’d say that I cannot believe how inappropriate you are Grantaire, but this is _you_ that we’re talking about.”

Grantaire made the lazy gesture of doffing a cap, were he wearing one and Cosette giggled again.

Cosette was a traitor.

Enjolras had never known anyone quite like Cosette. He wouldn’t, and couldn’t, exchange Les Amis for anything or anyone in the world, but Cosette had literally landed in his life with such a display of friendship and honesty that Enjolras couldn’t even begrudge Marius’ enthusiasm for his fiancée. He had, before he'd been introduced to Cosette, Marius’ petty heartache had seemed the least of his concern.

He’d never had a rapport with other genders.

He’d never had female friends as he’d grown up, going from private single sex school to another until he’d reached university. His sexuality had been another barrier in having female companions, as he’d never felt the impetus to reach out to anyone beyond his- inexcusably male- social circle and his activism.

Éponine had been the first, but Enjolras is willing to admit that Éponine intimidates him; laughing with Feuilly and Grantaire, drinking down with the best of them and able to walk the streets barefoot that even Bahorel hesitates before facing alone at night. Éponine’s life has been harder than most and she sings off-key regardless of who’s listening , and even when she’d come to a meeting with a black eye she’d refused support or offers of retribution; saying that she’d deal with it. When a week later she’d returned Enjolras’ wallet and all but announced that she was single again –and about time too- no one had quite known what to say. Enjolras respected Éponine wholeheartedly, in a similar manner to his admiration for Feuilly and they deserved each other, yet he’d never felt able to break the boundary between admiration and intimidation to pure unadulterated friendship.

Musichetta had come to a meeting as Joly’s girlfriend, then as Bousset’s girlfriend, then in her own right as an activist, and then finally as an independent women complete with well-formed arguments and opinions on the problems of failing to be intersectional within political activism, and with two doting boyfriends. Musichetta was a force to be reckoned with too, in her own way, less likely to dog your every step with thinly veiled threats, but more likely to stand before you, proud and unbending and demand that you explain in detail where the comedy in your racial joke emerged from and to receive the respect she deserved. But Musichetta’s loyalty goes to Joly and Bousset first and foremost, and Enjolras has never been able to reach out to people on a social level well. It has always been those who have come to him that he had made the deepest bonds with.

And so had come Cosette, who, after kissing Marius on the cheek at her first meeting had sat herself down next to Enjolras and demanded that he speak to her as he would any other. It is Cosette who nudges him with her elbow when he fluffs his lines while rehearsing a speech, and Cosette who points out that his fly is undone when he’s trying to look professional. And it is Cosette who is on speed dial, surpassed only by his parents, Combeferre and Courfeyrac.

And it is Cosette’s traitorous giggle that pulls him back into the room.

Grantaire, despite his claims, was staring in Enjolras’ direction, squinting into the light coming across from the neon sign behind him. Enjolras was casting Grantaire into shadow, the red of the neon fading out around the darkness on Grantaire’s face.

“I think that’s quite enough now, don’t you. So, if my presence doesn’t inconvenience you Grantaire, I shall continue.”

Grantaire beamed back at Enjolras’ simmering anger; as though forgetting that it was his ridiculous demand for him to stop in the first place.

“Oh _gladly_. Nothing would please me more.”

Cosette was lying if she said later that Enjolras stammered. Courfeyrac and Combeferre would never dare to say such a thing.

And Combeferre and Courfeyrac would know, as it was normally one of the pair of them who had caught his eye with knowing looks (Combeferre) or waggling their eyebrows while making inappropriate hand gestures (Courfeyrac, but once  Combeferre after Bahorel had spiked the eggnog at their last Yuletide celebration) whenever his gaze started to drift or his face went soft.

He could feel it when his face softened, and he hated it. Control and understanding was paramount, and Combeferre knowing looks only fuelled the itch.

Grantaire burnt under his skin, like a rash.

It’s been weeks, and Enjolras feels physically sickened in Grantaire’s presence; like his stomach is knotting over. Courfeyrac had mock-swooned across his bed, talking about ‘butterflies’ and ‘feelings’ but this is more like an illness than anything Enjolras has ever known. Enjolras has always had his health, has always recognised his hearty body as the commodity that it was.

  
There are still scars from chicken pox across Grantaire’s brow, deep, indented and obvious.

It’s the only reason that he can give; imagining Grantaire’s forehead smooth and unblemished, that he can give for having snatched up Grantaire’s discarded jacket months before, in a summer storm that had clapped thunder across the sky and left Jehan desperate to rescue kittens from the sodden gutter. Joly had been more concerned for rescuing Grantaire from the torrent, but unwilling to leave the shelter of the Musian himself.

“He’ll catch his death, he’s already ill, what if he gets pneumonia?”

“His nose might drop off and he’ll thank you for it Joly, stop fussing.”

It was after that meeting, after Enjolras had returned soaked to the skin and without Grantaire’s battered leather jacket, when Combeferre started looking at him with concerned eyes. Honestly, there was nothing to worry about.

It was after the meeting that Grantaire hadn’t attended that Courfeyrac had started up. And they’d never been given an explanation why Grantaire hadn’t shown up; Enjolras had just suspected that Grantaire came and went as he pleased, and it was nothing to do with him should the drunkard decided to drink elsewhere, but Bousset and Éponine had cast him kindly looks and Joly had made sure to sit tightly to Grantaire once he returned the next week looking the same as ever. But the meeting had started without Feuilly, (who had sent his apologies), and Grantaire, (who had not) and Enjolras had turned with fevered eyes to the tinkling of the shop door and only later realised that the glare he’d sent an apologising Feuilly had been solely for the crime of not being Grantaire. He’d loathed himself for that look and Feuilly, but his apology had been brushed off with a gentle smile. And it was after that particular incident that Courfeyrac started smirking whenever he caught Enjolras’ eye for too long.

The meeting passes without further incident or success, and it’s bleak outside of the warmth of the Corinthe. Enjolras goes home alone. He doesn’t know why the thought stays with him as it isn’t as though he lacks company, and nor does he truly have time to spare in his schedule.

The week is a long one.

Enjolras has an assignment due in, leaving him with more hours hunched over his laptop in the library than his spine is strictly comfortable with; and he knows that his sociability takes a sharp spike downwards while under academic pressure. He’s never struggled to put together his thoughts coherently, but the matter of forming them to meet arbitrary and ultimately pointless standards can have his hands balling into fists. Academia is a restrictive and damaging system, but were he to pull it down around him then, as Combeferre and Feuilly have told him before, then the benefits would only be short term, and would hurt others more than him. And would probably land him in jail. It had been Grantaire who had added that particular addition, shouted across the room to an already fuming Enjolras.

So he alternates between barricading himself in his room, and in a corner of the politics section of the library and works.

He knows better than to go without human company though, and once Tuesday rolls around he emerges from the library, blinking into the unexpected sunlight, to meet Bahorel for lunch. He’d been promised a meal and a couple of possible converts to the cause in exchange for his presence. Bahorel knows everyone, and Enjolras is sure that of the motley crew that he has assembled that there is at least one member of the administrative staff, a member of the on campus security services and one of the professors from the maths department. While technically speaking about the work of Les Amis isn’t downtime; Enjolras is energised by the meeting, and he can even overlook the girl who cannot stop laughing. It doesn’t seem cruel, she’s laughing at him, at Bahorel, at passers-by on the street, at Enjolras’ pronunciation of tapas, but Bahorel laughs with her.

He gets more work done once he returns to the library than he had in the two days preceding the short meeting. He’s not sure whether the handful of interested parties will be converts to the cause, but even when people cannot hear, it is better to speak than to remain silent.

After his assignment had been submitted on the Thursday afternoon and Enjolras feels like he can breathe again, he makes sure to knock on Combeferre and Jehan’s door; promptly at eight o’clock. He’s soon hurried into a chair as Jehan spoons what can only be home-made stew onto a plate in front of him and Combeferre looks indulgently over at the pair of them.

Enjolras has become used to the ease of Combeferre and Jehan’s relationship, and to the ease at which he has slipped into the middle of it. Combeferre has always been his best friend, in truth he couldn’t imagine ever having developed a meaningful relationship with anyone, had Combeferre not been casually placed in his life by fate when he was six years old. Enjolras refuses to acknowledge that when Combeferre had first told him about the nature of his relationship with Jehan his first instinct had been jealousy, as opposed to congratulations; but Jehan, free and fierce Jehan, had only pressed a kiss to Enjolras’ cheek and had understood.

He’d remained a part of Combeferre’s life, as he ever had, the only mark to change was that Jehan was there when he was needed; and absent when he was not. Jehan was more perspective than most, and Enjolras was grateful for his subtlety, even when he did not fully understand its application.

Enjolras had never been subtle.

So, he went to dinner with the pair of them, as tradition dictated, and allowed Jehan to fuss over his plate; and looked on as Combeferre, in his own way, fussed over Jehan.

And as tradition continued to dictate, after the plates had been carried away and Enjolras had rolled up his sleeves to do more than his share of the washing up, and as Jehan sipped green tea, there was a knock on the door.

Momentarily Courfeyrac looked abashed for interrupting, but the movement soon returned to his features as he bounced into the flat, pressing his lips to Jehan’s cheek, to Combeferre’s lips and then being stopped from reaching Enjolras by one soap-sudden marigold.

Courfeyrac pouted good naturedly.

He was waving a DVD in his other hand, as he often did on these evenings.

“You guys, it’s got giant robots, you’ve got to watch it with me”

Courfeyrac’s presence was never an imposition, and there were two packets of popcorn just waiting to be heated, anticipating his arrival.

These evenings always ended the same way, with Jehan and Courfeyrac curled up on the floor; Jehan stretched out like a cat, spine popping and braids appearing black against the beige carpet and Courfeyrac on his haunches leaning back as though to spring.

Combeferre was cross legged on the double seater sofa, warming his hands around his masala chai, and sighing contentedly.

He caught Enjolras gaze as the title sequence rolled around, and rolled his eyes good naturedly, gesturing at Courfeyrac and Jehan with his mug.

“The things we do Enjolras, oh the things we do.”

Enjolras smiled, content in his friends company, and settled into the armchair that had become temporarily his -with the weight of Courfeyrac against his legs- to watch the film.

They’re back at the Corinthe for their next official meeting, and Enjorlas arrives early. They normally rotate their ‘base-camp’ -as Joly jests- every few weeks, but with the weather pulling in the Corinthe is so well placed and accustomed to their antics that Courfeyrac and Feuilly wanted to stay put. Bahorel has said before that he doesn’t mind the extra distance it takes him to arrive, Éponine just shrugs when asked which of the interchangeable cafes is most accessible to her, and Enjolras isn’t actually sure in which part of town Grantaire lives.

Grantaire’s never offered up that information to him in one of his endless rambles, so that justifies his ignorance; it’s not like he wants to know. That doesn’t seem to stop him feeling unsettled by the gap in his knowledge. His hands are wrapped around the back of the chair that Grantaire always favours without his conscious knowledge, and it’s not that he’s moving it further towards the back of the room out of any particular reason not to want Grantaire close to him. It’s just something to do with his hands and Grantaire never sits close to him it would be _unsettling_ if he started now.

It would also mean that should he and Grantaire start debating the neon lighting wouldn’t be behind him, throwing Grantaire into shadow.

It’s only Enjolras in the backroom, and his toasted sandwich has been left to get colder as instead all of his attention is focused on picking over his notes with a highlighter. He likes to work off tangible paper, computers are important and he’s got his laptop folded in his bag, but for now he likes to trace the sensation of ink gilding over paper.

The room fills quickly, giddy and loudly; like schoolchildren filing in for assembly and Enjolras permits himself a smile into his paper before looking up to his friends.

Cosette has perched herself on the edge of his desk, swinging her legs and feeding Marius the remains of Enjolras’ meal, while Bousset has swiped Joly’s hat and it holding it above his head and laughing as he jumps to reach it.

Combeferre is whispering with Jehan, looking the epitome of alone in a crowd.

And Enjolras is concerned about the frankly wicked looking grins that are springing up in the hushed conversation of Courfeyrac, Feuilly and Musichetta.

Although they’re in no particular rush this evening time is pressing on, and Enjolras wants to start, but the room seems slightly emptier than usual. He can’t quite place the absence, but it itches under his skin.

It’s as Enjolras looks to Combeferre quizzically, as though Combeferre should be able to locate their missing trio, when the doors open with a bang and the first thing that Enjolras notices is the _blood_.

His heart is pounding in his ears, and it’s only when he shakes his head to eradicate the steady beat of blood that he hears the laughter.

Bahorel’s chuckle is deep and booming, and he’s got one arm swung over Éponine’s shoulders and the other tucked around Grantaire’s waist.

“Damn Grantaire, you didn’t need to jump in but boy you know how to throw a punch-”

Bahorel’s joviality is broken off by the flurry of activity that commences on the three of them. Joly is fussing over Bahorel’s split knuckles, but his smile only eventually falters after he offers to take a proper look at the scratches down Éponine’s face and she shrugs, jaw tensing.

“I’ve had worse at home.”

And the atmosphere deadens for a moment; only Feuilly can keep Éponine’s eye, and Cosette and Musichetta flock to their sister.

Éponine is fierce in her independence, but as she leans into Musichetta’s embrace, it is clear that she is pleased for their wordless support regardless.

The story falls into some form of recognisable order over the course of the evening. It transpires that Grantaire, while unwilling to dedicate himself to the cause, is willing enough to throw himself into a fight for his friends. On the surface this isn’t altogether surprising, but his black eye and bloody teeth throw the matter into sharp relief. The fight had begun as a miscommunication, “yeah, he didn’t understand what ‘no’ meant” and while Éponine and Bahorel were holding their own, neither had exactly objected when Grantaire threw in his lot with his fists.

His ponytail has been pulled out from its tie, greasy and lank and it looks like someone’s used his hair as leverage; held it with one hand while they punched him in the face with the other. But Grantaire smiles through his ripped lip, and the blood on his teeth makes them look yellower than normal. He’d explained the tint of his teeth once, Enjolras had overheard him discussing childhood illnesses with Joly and Bossuet, and it hadn’t been the drinking. Or at least not completely the drinking,  -‘I was a very sickly child, my parents hated it, but the medication stained my beautiful pearly teeth. Only thing I had going for me.’- Grantaire’s laugh had been harsh, but Bossuet had laughed and it was much the same laugh that was permeating Combeferre’s quiet breakdown of the costs of their latest publication.

The room is only half listening anyway. Even Enjolras is finding his eye drawn to Grantaire before his laugh bubbled around the room.

Cosette is perched in Grantaire’s lap, her shoeless feet barely touching the floor as she swings them and leans her head against R’s shoulder.

Marius has come to accept that his girlfriend is affectionate with everyone, and he no longer splutters and gapes noiselessly when she links fingers and nuzzles against his friends. Courfeyrac  had once offered to make out with him to make him feel better about the whole thing. Marius flushed bright red and Cosette had shouted across the room that she didn’t mind from where she had her fingers trailing through Jehan’s locks.

“Dennet René Grantaire, what have you been doing to yourself, you foolish man?”

Cosette’s question is all but rhetorical, but she wraps her arms a little tighter around Grantaire’s shoulder. When he whispers something to her it’s too quiet for the room to hear she only shakes her head and presses her perfect lips to Grantaire’s marred cheek, purple with the bruise and mottled with port-wine, and then to his ear, misshapen from fights and rugby scrums to whisper a reply.

Grantaire’s smile doesn’t light up his face but it’s genuine, and it remains so for the rest of the meeting that Courfeyrac manages to call to order by whistling through his fingers until there was relative quiet again.

Grantaire’s expression falters when the others begin to leave, hours later.

Enjolras almost didn’t realise that it was only him and Grantaire in the darkened room, lit only by a hazed red glow. He’d registered his friend’s farewells, Combeferre’s hand squeezing his shoulder, Feuilly’s fluttering fingers in lieu of words, Courfeyrac blowing a kiss, but the steady trail of amis leaving into the darkened street hadn’t contained Grantaire.

Grantaire wasn’t smiling anymore, and Enjolras doesn’t know why that makes him feel guilty. He’d done nothing. Perhaps that was why.

Grantaire’s face looks both pallid and ruddy beneath the bruises and the drink and the skin around his grey eye was enflamed and tender. Grantaire had waved aside Joly’s offers of assistance instead electing to self-medicate with something cheap and bitter, but now he winced.

Enjolras coughed, and Grantaire dropped his reddened hand from where he’d been examining his own swollen face. Enjolras isn’t sure if he wanted to catch Grantaire’s attention before he left or whether he simply wanted to be on his way, but Grantaire had turned towards him, face shadowed, and now he had to say something.

“It doesn’t look _too_ bad, not too noticeable.”

The smile has plastered itself back onto Grantaire’s face before Enjolras’ hesitant words had filtered through from his mind to his mouth. There’s something unsettling about Grantaire’s smile, it’s more misshapen-teeth than soft eyes. A fake smile.

“What, my face? Most people have learnt to live with it by now.”

Enjolras doesn’t splutter. He doesn’t usually allow himself to express his words in a way other than clearly and precisely. He practices his speeches to himself in the mirror, he runs through conversations of import with Combeferre, and he makes notes, dotted with highlighter and ink scrawls.  He doesn’t allow himself to be put into confrontations that he’s unaware of. Of course with Grantaire his contingency plans are often thrown into chaos.

Grantaire is still smiling. He looks like something wicked. A gargoyle on Notre Dame. But his eyes aren’t cold and dark. Enjolras has never been the best at reading people on a personal level.

“You are purposefully and wilfully misinterpreting me. You are nothing to be so easily dismissed. You… You throw me into relief, I’m grateful.”

And he is. It’s not the only compliment that he’s paid to Grantaire, in the past he has told him that he’s talented, that he’s contributed and that he, alongside everyone else, is valuable as a human being. The last he may have transmitted through one of his speeches, but Grantaire had been in attendance, and when Enjolras spoke he spoke for all to hear him. He’s less rarely thought of Grantaire as an equal, or more accurately as an opposite, but Enjolras is grateful for his presence in a way that he knows could be articulated better, however he’s glad that he’s spoken. He’s about to smile, an honest smile, which shows his teeth and rounds his cheeks when Grantaire’s face falls.

His eyes go stormy, and the tension in his arms suggests that his hands have been balled into fists deep in his jacket pockets.

“I thought that you of all people wouldn’t... Hell, I didn’t even realise you knew what I looked like. Just, just don’t think about it too hard. Everyone else manages just fine. Don’t look too hard either; you won’t like what you see.”

And then Grantaire is gone, thunderous footsteps and heavy, heaving breaths trailing behind into the silence of Enjolras standing alone.

Enjolras appreciates art. People don’t expect it of him, with his focus on the attainable and achievable within the political sphere, but there’s power in art. Not just in the posters that Feuilly designs for them, or in the ironic cartoons that Grantaire doesn’t appear to realise the satirical potential of, but the type of art that is strung up in galleries with  books dedicated towards their understanding and upkeep. It’s far easier to look at a painting to ascertain what the artist wanted you to see, wanted you to feel, that it is to look a stranger in the eye and understand their motivations. Art doesn’t argue back, and it’s striking and powerful. He doesn’t think that all art is beautiful, some is hideous, but it is powerful.

He flits his way through artistic movements, regulated far more by the collections that he can afford to see than by any personal preference. But when pushed to choose he errs towards social realism. Social realism is injustice as inspiration and beautiful penance combined. He thinks of the paintings of the wretched, with their innocent suffering etched so tragically onto round, pink cheeked painted faces, their curls tamed, their skin flawless and their eyes meek. Dirt and pain smudged on with an idle hand, a soft brush against the cold canvas.

Besides them, Enjolras thinks, Grantaire looks real.

He doesn’t think to try and explain this to Combeferre when he comes calling, not quite flustered, but still unsettled from the impact that his words had had, even days later. Enjolras supposes that Combeferre already knows.

Combeferre certainly seems to know what Enjolras means to say, even when he can’t quite fathom the words themselves.

  
“Grantaire, well, he’s confident, but he knows the truth of things.”

Enjolras has always held with the importance of truth. But where Enjolras’ truth lies in his words Grantaire’s lies in his actions. And both are subjective according to audience and intention. Enjolras thinks that he’s beginning to compartmentalise his own truth, and the shape of his world that inexplicably has Grantaire trapped within its orbit, but he is nowhere close to understanding Grantaire himself.

Combeferre is steady, but never hesitant, and Enjolras has always listened to his counsel. Although he has the urge to pick at the hem of his shirt like he hadn’t gone since he was a child he kept his twitching fingers enlaced and waited.

“What matters is what you make of it Enjolras, and it appears that it distresses you. I won’t patronise you or psychoanalyse you, because I think you know what this means to you even if you aren’t transmitting it very well. But I want you to be sure. You don’t have to answer me, but you must know your own mind before you want to try to know anyone else’s.”

Combeferre allows the silence of Enjolras’ thoughts, but it only takes seconds for the decision to be made. Combeferre was right, as he ever was, and Enjolras knew where the spiralling direction of his thoughts were leading him and all that it would entail.

“Where’s Jehan?”

Combeferre’s smile has always been thin; Courfeyrac called it the twinkling of the stars at twilight when Combeferre smiled widely enough for the shine of his teeth to be seen, but there had never been any doubt cast on the warmth and genuine nature of Combeferre’s happiness and Enjolras returns the smile.

“Tending the garden, I’ll go get him if you like?”

“No, I’ll go, we should talk. Thank you Combeferre.”

Combeferre looks proud of him, and Enjolras is cast back suddenly to being a child, to hiding in Combeferre’s embrace before his own growth spurt shot him upwards. He’s more grateful than he can put into words for Combeferre’s presence in his life.

There’s no reason to be embarrassed, but he ducks his face as he passes on his way through to the garden.

The garden is actually the window-boxes hanging out the back of the spare-bedroom; flowers that rarely get the right sunlight being coaxed into life by Jehan’s hand. There are two different crops; one in each box, in the left Enjolras recognises the tentative growth of tomato plants, while the right is a riot of colour.

Enjolras toed off his shoes in Combeferre and Jehan’s kitchen, so he hitches himself onto the edge of the clean linin, crossing his legs and resting his hands lightly on his knees.

Jehan has heard him enter, he had answered Enjolras’ knock after all, but his attention is focused on deadheading and Enjolras is loath to intrude.

He does however because he must, Enjolras was not made for meaningless silences.

He does not, however, say what he had been considering his opening gambit to be.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever said, but I’m pleased that you and Combeferre are, you know, you make each other happy.”

Jehan’s smile is open and honest as he turns and presses the pale thin flowerhead into Enjolras’ hands- he recognises it in passing, something sweet sounding but venomous looking- and he leans back, crossing his arms and appraising Enjolras.

Jehan has a way of looking straight through a person. Occasionally it makes Enjolras feel uncomfortable.

Enjolras cradles the flower between his dry palms.

“Happiness is fleeting and temporary, but then, what isn’t Enjolras?”

Enjolras could answer, could sway the discussion away from the emotional and into the theoretical,  but that would be the coward’s way out, and Enjolras has always been willing to face himself head on, even when he didn’t like the person who looked back at him.

“Pain. I believe I may have inadvertently hurt Grantaire; personally, and without intent. I commented on his appearance after the fight he was in the other day, and I think he misinterpreted me.”

Jehan lent back on his haunches as he appraised Enjolras, his pale eyes bright against the window-light.

“No. You didn’t intend it did you Enjolras? Often you do, why is this different?”

Jehan isn’t judging him, even as he verbalises Enjolras’ unconscious cruelty so Enjolras feels able to keep his eye.

“I wouldn’t judge him on what he looks like, at least- to assume that beauty can only be held to one western centric feminised ideal is simply crass, it’s unbecoming that he could think me so affected by his appearance when it has never affected by judgment of him before.”

He bites off the words, jaw locking shut, muscles twitching.

He can feel himself becoming angry at the thought of Grantaire misinterpreting him, although he was the one who has spoken in both his defence and prosecution. Grantaire is a witness. Grantaire’s hurt at his words is no reason for anger at anyone but himself.

Jehan sighs, leaning his head back against the wall and allowing the expanse of dark sinewy throat to be bared to Enjolras.

Jehan isn’t afraid of anything, least of all Enjolras.

“Grantaire isn’t beautiful though. Oh, he’s the waves crashing over the thundercloud and the rocks breaking at the foot of the cliff, but he isn’t beautiful Enjolras. And Grantaire knows that as well as I do, and as well as you do. Your words can hurt, even though you didn’t mean them too, and when he stands next to you, Enjolras, with you so magnified by the sun. Well, to be frank he’s beyond plain; he’s the functionality of a key in a lock as opposed to the splendour of the mechanism. Not all in this world are built to be admired; there must be a base element from which to work on.”

Enjolras attempted to school his face, although Jehan hadn’t lowered his head again to look him in the eye.

“And Grantaire knows this; he’s an artist too, in his own way. And a philosopher; a student of Hobbes, in all the worst ways, with the poetic harshness of Catullus.  Grantaire knows himself far more than you know him. Or know yourself I think.”

Jehan’s fingers twitched against his demin-clad thigh, and Enjolras thinks that he might be itching for a cigarette, but to mention it would derail the conversation, and Jehan would only scowl at him. There is a time and place for Enjolras’ input on Jehan’s dwindling habit, and that is a time for quiet nights at the Musian and words of encouragement and support regardless of outcome. Not for now.

“But, you don’t really want to be talking to me at all Enjolras, not that I don’t adore your company but go home and then do what you must, apologise or state your case. I hate seeing you so uncertain, _carpe diem_ , Enjolras, _carpe diem_.”

Jehan’s eyes are still closed as he leans against the wall, but he’s smiling and idly waving Enjolras out, and Enjolras knows that he’s been dismissed from Jehan’s space.

The words that he wants to say are muffled under thought, but he lets out a quiet ‘thanks’ as he slips off the bed and past Jehan, and Jehan’s grin widens to show his teeth as Enjolras closes the door quietly.

Combeferre is reading. Enjolras doesn’t recognise the book, but as Enjolras sits to slip his shoes back on the cover is folded shut and the title could be Germanic. Languages were never Enjolras’ strong suit.

Combeferre’s shoulders loosen as he looks and Enjolras has to wonder if he’s been carrying a weight around his neck and quite when in the past hour that it has lifted.

They’re quiet until Enjolras stands and reaches for his coat.

“Call me if you need anything.”

“And the same to you, if you need me to cover your blog post because of your assessment? Then I can definitely find one of the other’s to do it. It wouldn’t be a problem.”

Combeferre’s fingers skim over the paperback in his lap and his eyes twinkle over his glasses.

“Ah, there you are.”

He knows what Combeferre means, he can feel it, standing taller, he is himself again, and no longer Enjolras playing at Enjolras, but once again fully himself.

“Talking to Jehan helped?”

Combeferre is stoic, but he goes soft when he talks about his friends and loved ones, and his eyes are so very soft as he looks at Enjolras and speaks of Jehan. Enjolras wants to know that feeling.

“Yes, he cleared my mind, set me back on course.”

“He’s good at that.”

Enjolras knows that he’s said the words playing on his tongue to Combeferre before, before he’d thought of extending them to Jehan, but it feels somehow wrong to keep them apart.

“That he is. I’m honestly happy for you.”

But Combeferre already knew. Combeferre always knows.

“I know, I know. Now go on, get out, I’ll let you know about the timings of the assessment and the blog post.”

It’s raining as he leaves Jehan and Combeferre’s apartment, and he barely notices his curls being flattened into his brow and the rain settling across his shoulders, causing the drag of heavy wool down his back.

The despicable weather conditions only register when he attempts to use the touch screen of his phone.

Enjolras had intended to leave a thought through and put-together voicemail to Cosette, but his plans had been scuppered by her bright and cheerful voice coming through the handset after only two rings.

It hadn’t been well formed. As he had muttered into his phone Enjolras had been convinced that he could feel eyes on him, one brown and one grey, crinkled in confusion and shame, and he’d hung up without even saying goodbye. Cosette hadn’t taken offense, if anything the tone of her text message reply seemed fond, as though she knew more than he did.

It was possible.

He hadn’t explained in full in his rushed message, hadn’t even brought names to the discussion, but she probably knew anyway.

_Sorry Enjolras, M & I are staying with his grandfather for a few days. I’m sorry darling, but you sound like you’re in control of the situation. And listen to Combeferre! We’ll be back for Thursday. Good luck. xoxox_

Heaven forbid what would happen should Combeferre and Cosette team up and choose to use their powers for evil. The whimsical thought struck Enjolras and he giggled. The sound shocked out of him like unexpected gunfire.

It’s raining and Enjolras is standing out in the street, clutching his phone, damp to his bones, and he’s laughing. So he does the only thing he can think to do at this moment.

He goes to Grantaire.

Except it is for Courfeyrac’s flat that he buzzes for entry.

It’s early evening and Enjolras’ hair is plastered to his head. Courfeyrac bends over double with laughter when he pulls open the door to let him in and Enjolras’ is pleased for his reflexes when a towel is lobbed in his direction.

Of all their friends Courfeyrac is the most likely to both know Grantaire’s address – how does Enjolras not know? He is supposed to be observant and dedicated to his friends, how can he let such vital information slip through his fingers, what if he was needed?- and most likely to tell Enjolras. Because this had to be in person, whatever it was going to be.

Courfeyrac is halfway through some story or other about whatever it was Bossuet and Joly had got up to the night before, with Enjolras nodding and making appreciative noises in the right places while he palms his hair dry, when he stops.

The spoon he was stirring into the vegan hot chocolate mix that Feuilly had bought him for Christmas stilled, clinking softly.

How did Enjolras know what Feuilly had bought Courfeyrac for Christmas, but not where Grantaire lived?

“Okay, Enjolras, out with it. I know you’re not just here for the pleasure of my towels, my hot chocolate and my company. Spill.”

He wishes that he hadn’t taken his coat off, sodden as it was. That thick fabric was his shield and his armour.

“Grantaire.”

Courfeyrac knows how to listen when the time is right, but he also knows when to talk, and at Grantaire’s name he launches back into speech, as though he knew that Enjolras had already run out of words.

“Well he didn’t break his nose again, so that’s something, gods can you imagine? But he’s cleaning up as good as he can. A right shiner that’ll turn out being and no mistake, I remember when he and Bahorel ended up down at the Du Maine last-”

Enjolras mouthed the interruption before he vocalised it, and Courfeyrac watched the movement of his lips before going quiet.

“Is Grantaire sensitive about his looks?”

Courfeyrac was good at hearing things that people didn’t know that they were saying.

“Enjolras, is this what I think it is? I could kiss you-”

“Wouldn’t that go rather against what I am trying to achieve here Courfeyrac?”

And Courfeyrac beamed.

“Spoilsport.”

But the insult was veiled behind the fluttering hands that pushed the first mug of cooling hot chocolate towards him, while tugging the towel from around Enjolras’ shoulders and down over a chairback.

“Drink, drink up. I think I need it. So, you actually understand? It’s actually registered in your mind; you’re not going through pon farr are you?”

Courfeyrac’s giddy enthusiasm was infectious, but Enjolras grinned tightly before wrapping his fingers more firmly around his mug and drawing it to his lips.

“Grantaire, Courfeyrac.”

“Okay, okay, just, wow, look at you. Never thought I’d see the day. Well, he’s no renaissance beauty now is he? Don’t look at me like that, he’s always the first one with a comment. He likes charcoal, says it’s a more forgiving medium, he’s said before, but I’ve never seen a sketch or self-portrait though, just doesn’t seem the type. Aware. I would say that Grantaire was aware.”

Enjolras nodded like a declaration of war.

With Grantaire’s address programmed into his phone, and phone safely in the pocket of his now only faintly damp coat, Enjolras was steered towards the door by Courfeyrac’s hands on his shoulders.

Despite his previous objections Courfeyrac pecked a kiss on Enjolras’ cheek as he was leaving, and Enjolras doesn’t even swat him away. Courfeyrac counts that as a victory.

It doesn’t rain for the duration of the walk from Courfeyrac’s to Grantaire. Autumn is brisk, whipping along the twilight lit streets and Enjolras has to duck his chin into his upturned collar to allay the chill.

It only occurs to him as raises his hand to the peeling paintwork on the door, that he’s doubled checked is the right one, that Grantaire might not be behind that door at all.

The sensation of repeatedly knocking makes his cold hands sting, and he’s still attempting to rub the pain out of them when the door opens.

His hands still and his tongue goes dead in his mouth. Words have always been Enjolras’ truth, but with Grantaire standing as though stunned, he finds himself quieted.

The skin around Grantaire’s grey eye has yellowed, the bruised fading into a sickly colour, sensitive and unsightly. He hasn’t shaved, and the stubble highlights the redness of his jawline. He looks tired, he looks sad. And Enjolras knows that he isn’t emotionally perceptive, but he finds that Grantaire’s sadness isn’t something that he can only read in Grantaire. He can read it in himself too.

He’s too determined for this knowledge to unsettle him.

“May I come in?”

Grantaire is still for a long moment, his fingers digging into the doorframe, and Enjolras is ready to accept his silence as refusal, when he shivers. While walking the cold of the damp wool hadn’t infused through him, but standing on Grantaire’s doorstep, with the sun just having sunk below the skyline, suddenly Enjolras feels cold.

“‘Pose you better come in then.”

Grantaire’s house is messy, but Enjolras attempts to draw his focus onto Grantaire’s slumped shoulders instead of the haphazard pile of shoes by the door or the upturned boxes of books or on the stained throw. They end up in Grantaire’s kitchen.

Grantaire hasn’t spoken since he’d stepped back into his house. He hadn’t looked back. Hadn’t seen whether Enjolras was following him. A successful Orpheus. Enjolras doesn’t normally think in half-truths and myth, and he can’t remember who that makes him. He hopes that he survives. Grantaire’s guitar had been left on the battered and worn leather sofa, about to fall.

Grantaire is never silent.

In the years that Enjolras has known Grantaire there has always been noise. It may not have been worthwhile or appreciated. But it has been there. The undercurrent of roaring traffic, the interruptions of Grantaire. Take away that constant and Enjolras feels dislocated, despite having traced his every step.

“I’m sorry.”

It’s still too quiet in Grantaire’s kitchen, and suddenly Enjolras doesn’t want to talk. He wants to turn around and walk out, taking back his words; he wants to take off his coat, roll up his sleeves and do Grantaire’s washing up for him; he wants to take the bottle that Grantaire had just taken up out of Grantaire’s hands and rally at him, a one man crusade for Grantaire’s self-worth.

But he stands, and watches Grantaire drop into the chair that he’d obviously vacated when Enjolras had pounded at his door.

It’s only a half-movement, the shrug that Grantaire gives in response before raising the bottle back to his lips. Its beer of some sort, or at least Enjolras thinks that it is. There isn’t anything cloying at the back of his throat which accompanied Grantaire drinking anything stronger in his presence. Joly had told him that it was impossible to be able to taste Grantaire’s drink on the air, but Grantaire’s very presence denounced his sobriety.

“Why are you here Enjolras?”

Grantaire is more than halfway to drunk, but Enjolras can’t remember that last time he’d known him wholly sober. There have been rallies and meetings before midday, with Grantaire hushed and scowling, cap pulled low over his red-rimmed eyes. But to see Grantaire sober, a Grantaire scrubbed fresh and raw from sobriety. Enjolras struggles to picture it. Grantaire has always smoothed his edges away under liquor, and he’s sharp even at his most intoxicated.

“It has come to my attention that my words could have been interpreted as degrading your appearance, and I am sorry for that.”

And then Grantaire laughs.

It’s harsh and mocking, and Enjolras wants to shake him to make him stop. But when he catches Grantaire’s mismatched eyes he is frozen. His traitorous brain supplies him with of all things the curse of Medusa, and Enjolras doesn’t think in mythology, that is Grantaire’s influence on him, Grantaire’s shocking visage. Grantaire is to blame, and he stills.

“Enjolras, my image was built to be degraded. I am a joke of nature, and a bad one. I am not saying this for pity, or for your misguided sympathy. This is a fact. I am hideous. Do you know that Jehan once called me a contradiction in terms, to laugh so sweetly but look so sour? He wrote it down and everything, I kept it, thought it was apt. I mean, would you dare to throw away any of Jehan’s poetry?”

No, Enjolras wouldn’t.

Grantaire is defeated, it’s in the line of his shoulders and how he looks away from Enjolras’ eyes. His face is shadowed again, red and black, and his head is bowed as though the weight of the world is on his shoulders. And Grantaire knows no burdens like those Les Amis attempt to right, but he does have demons of his own, and they are wearing him down.

But he’s talking.

“And we argue, we fight bitterly and yet I stay because I’m like the stain that you can’t get rid of. I’m no poster boy for your ideals, I can’t even draw people in like the others can. And I love you and you hate me. This is how it has always been, don’t you see that. You see the world in black and white, in good and bad, in beautiful and ugly. In Enjolras and Grantaire. So why can’t you see this?”

Enjolras’ fingers are still gripping the cuffs of his coat, crossed over his chest as Grantaire finishes talking. Enjolras has made a career of drawing out rhetorical questions, and answering them with the necessary violence, but Grantaire has slumped forward in his seat like a marionette with the strings cut and again, Enjolras is wordless.

Enjolras cannot see Grantaire’s face, with his head turned down, dejected, only his crown and the lank curls that reach his neck.

His flushed fingers are still loosely gripping the bottle, like a broken prayer where his hands are hanging between his legs. It could look suggestive, - even Enjolras has gathered that- but instead a wave of something floods through Enjolras.

He can’t tell if it’s pity, if its desire or if it’s just him wanting to contradict Grantaire.

But Grantaire is wrong.

He surprises both himself and Grantaire when he plucks the beer from Grantaire’s grasp and places it on the table. Grantaire’s eyes widen when they meet Enjolras’, but he obviously can’t read the answer that he’s looking for, so drops his head back down, still silent.

Words are almost not enough, but they could be too much at the moment. So instead Enjolras kneels between Grantaire’s spread knees, and he knows that this could look like, but Grantaire is haloed against the halogen bulb, and the angle isn’t flattering to him at all. His face, already in permanent shadow is only highlighted as dramatic. As something to be feared.

For a moment he wants to take one of Grantaire’s hands, where it hangs loose, but instead he makes a grip on Grantaire’s knee, tightening his hold against the fabric, there could be bruises when he lets go.

Grantaire doesn’t sob. There is no outpouring of emotion, but Enjolras has given Grantaire nothing that he couldn’t afford to give.

It is not enough.

“You are not hated Grantaire, and we are striving for a world in which black and white, in which night and day themselves can afford to embrace, to be born again anew.”

His metaphor is strained, too much allegory and not enough fact, and Grantaire can never abide his arguments when they fill themselves with pretty words, ‘come Enjolras such platitudes are beyond your talents if you wanted to reassure us that the world can withstand perfection then go into professional politics, I don’t come here to listen to you lie’. But he can’t think of how else to phrase himself.

It is so important for him that Grantaire be Grantaire, and that he continues his presence as it is.

“You say that you believe me when I talk plainly, then know this, you are not hated, while society may disdain us all, and while the individual might cast judgement on your appearance or most accurately, on your judgement, you are not hated, not by your friends, our companions, or, by me.”

Grantaire has not looked up in this speech, but his silent breathing is steady, so Enjolras softens his stance, kneeling down and continuing to look up.

“Arbitrary condemnations of commonly held aesthetics mean nothing to me, Grantaire, you know this, so why attempt to throw such words in my face? You are not hated, and you are not bad.”

Enjolras knows that his suggestion is a thinly veiled command when in perilous situations, but what of his judgements in the harsh light of Grantaire’s kitchen?

He doesn’t need to speak anymore, but there is no need to leave where he is knelt. Grounded, he is grounding himself, and he thinks, Grantaire. It doesn’t matter how long he remains down, until he is told to abandon his position.

And then Grantaire’s hand is covering his on his knee. And Grantaire hasn’t spoken, and hasn’t looked up from where his head is hung low. But Grantaire’s actions can be louder than his words, because Grantaire can expound for hours without saying anything, but it only takes him to reach out and touch Courfeyrac on the shoulder for the other man to understand. Enjolras wants to understand.

“You are not hated Grantaire.”

All it would take to be a breath apart would be Enjolras kneeling up, and he is contemplating doing so when the rough breath is shrugged out of Grantaire, and the hand holding his own is tightened.

The outpouring of emotion is never a pretty sight. Even less so on Grantaire.

The movement is so sudden that Enjolras couldn’t have predicted that he would be the one to make it, but the hitch in Grantaire’s breath is followed by him rising to his knees and wrapping his arms around Grantaire’s hunched shoulders. The angle is wrong, and uncomfortable, Grantaire’s hair is greasy against his neck and his knees ache, but he doesn’t think of that, and doesn’t think of Grantaire’s breathe against the skin of his neck as he breathes unevenly and harshly, and beautifully.

There is nothing to do and nothing to say, and Grantaire embarrassed, and Enjolras, vulnerable, allows himself to leave Grantaire’s sanctuary. Enjolras wants to say more, wants to build up the arguments of his thesis that Grantaire is not bad, and not hated, and wants to make his words believable. But it is dark and there have been so many hours of not saying anything already.

The words they exchange at the door are quiet, the words exchanged by passing acquaintances on the street, not between whatever they are.

Grantaire will be there on Thursday, as will Enjolras.

Enjolras never even took off his coat.

The first Thursday of every month is a tradition for Les Amis. Until Marius and Cosette’s engagement the location of Thursday evenings had been in flux, crammed into spare rooms and once taking up a series of picnic tables while wrapped up in layers of coats and blankets, and sipping brandy or black coffee to keep warm.

Cosette’s father doted on his daughter, and the ground-floor flat that he’d bought the couple for their engagement had brought tears to Cosette’s eyes, flushed and giddy thanks from Marius and an idea creeping into the collective minds of the rag-tag group of friends.

The flat itself is nothing flash -and no one but Jehan would dare to call it kitsch and cutesy, only Jehan could withstand Cosette’s retort and Marius’ hurt look- but it’s large enough to accommodate all of them, so all of Les Amis gather on the first Thursday of the month. They bring all the food that they can manage to prepare, and spend an evening together, as friends.

They are all there, and have always been together for this.

They talk shop, of course they do, they condemn governments and decry politicians, but this is not a meeting, and they call know it. And occasionally Enjolras or Combeferre have a notebook, which they make a point of only jotting down the beginning of the conversation, before joining in with whichever game is being played.

Grantaire is as much himself as he ever is at these events, laughing and drinking and acting as though he hadn’t declared himself worthless to Enjolras only days ago. Enjolras could count the hours, the exchange between the two of them is burnt into his brain; time, latitude, longitude, content and context. As though it were a sample incident to be registered, augmented and analysed.  It’s only Grantaire.

Combeferre, Cosette and Éponine have been making pointed looks down the table towards them all evening. Enjolras is sat between Jehan and Joly, but Grantaire is on Joly’s other side, distance lessened by the curve of the table, and it’s taken more will than Enjolras had considered it would have taken, to look away. Courfeyrac winks at him when he pours himself half a glass of one of the bottles of Bergerac Blanc that Musichetta had brought as her contribution to the meal, but Enjolras doesn’t smile back although he knows exactly what Courfeyrac is insinuating.

He hadn’t told anyone what had happened after he spoke to Grantaire. Not Combeferre, not Courfeyrac, not Cosette. Enjolras has always been unwilling to break a confidence or to share a secret that wasn’t his to tell. But was it even a secret, the limited level of Grantaire’s self-worth. Jehan knew. Courfeyrac knew. Combeferre knew something of it. Or was it only a secret to Enjolras. The thought turned his stomach, and he swallowed the suddenly soured wine to try and wash the feeling away.

They draw lots to sort out the haphazard pile of dirty crockery at the end of the meal. They didn’t used to draw names out of Marius’ battered top hat – apparently it’s a family heirloom, but Courfeyrac has coveted it for fancy dress on enough occasions that the grandiose nature has abeted somewhat– but after the time that all of them had crushed into the small room, Bossuet had broken the kitchen window lot are now drawn.

Enjolras has been spared the soap suds this month, as has Grantaire. And it’s only because he’s watching the slope of Grantaire’s shoulders that he notices him slip from the room tucking a cigarette behind his ear.

He appears again in the cold evening air a moment later, lighting up his cigarette and leaning on the rough brick wall.

And he looks stark outside the window of the ground floor flat. Built up from clay and the world around them, Grantaire is a creature of the world, as much as he claims Enjolras is a celestial being.

And if he doesn’t go now then he never will, with their friends on the other side of brick and glass, and more than likely watching them once Enjolras starts to move, and with Grantaire standing alone in the growing darkness.

Grantaire doesn’t turn towards the sound of the door closing, and Enjolras is captivated by the curl of smoke into the aether.

“Dusk.”

The smoke stops.

“Grand observations skills you’ve got there Enjolras, we’ll make a detective of you yet.”

But Enjolras knows Grantaire’s deflection techniques, and he won’t be distracted. This is a conversation that needs to happen, and if it doesn’t happen now then the moment will pass and Enjolras can achieve anything that he puts his mind too, but he can’t turn back time.

Cities give off very dramatic sunsets.

“The meeting of day and night. It’s beautiful isn’t it?”

Grantaire scoffs beside him, and Enjolras wasn’t really expecting anything else of him. He knows that his words are trite, but the transference of emotions into words is difficult to diffuse.

“Feeling poetic are we? I suppose you have been sitting next to Jehan all right, these things tend to rub off on you.”

But it isn’t Jehan who has him thinking in metamorphoses’.

“You know exactly what I mean Grantaire.”

Grantaire’s still smoking resiliently beside him, nothing has convinced him to stop, not Combeferre’s worry or Joly and Bossuet’s agreement to quit with him, and not Enjolras’ disapproving scowl. But if Grantaire had quit smoking then he wouldn’t be outside for Enjolras to have this conversation with.

“Do I? You astound me that you claim to know me this well.”

“I know you as well as I ought to, but not as well as I want to. It is sunset, the embrace of night and day. You understand what I mean by that, do you remember?”

The fire in Grantaire’s eyes seems to darken, even as the embers of his cigarette glow brighter. He is sombre, if not sober.

“Yes.”

Grantaire sounds sure of himself. His voice doesn’t have the lilting broken quality that it did in the harsh light of his kitchen, although he still isn’t at its usual pounding strength. Grantaire could talk down the birds from the sky with this tenacity. While Enjolras could convince them down with faith alone.

“You are not hated. You are loved. By them-”

He gestures towards the living room window behind him, where he knows that at least one of their friends will be watching, they’re too nosy for their own good, but he will not turn, he will not look because his courage is a fleeting thing when alone with Grantaire, when alone with himself.

“- And by me. You are loved by me.”

Grantaire blows smoke and the wind carries it away. The wind would carry Enjolras’ words away as well but he repeats them. And repeats them.

Perhaps Grantaire will believe them. Perhaps he’ll taste of smoke.

Enjolras doesn’t know what he wants Grantaire’s response to be.

Grantaire’s voice is bland and rough when he eventually talks.

“I am hideous.”

“You are mine.”

It’s a blanket statement, and Enjolras is shocked by himself for classifying his relationship to Grantaire like property ownership, and Grantaire’s eyes widen, one mud brown and the other sky grey. They do nothing to flatter his face, wide and encased in week old bruising, looking like his port-wine stain had bled across his face.

“That is, of course, if that would be something amenable to you, if you’d permit- It was incredibly improper of me to make such a claim on. I’m sorry-”

And now Enjolras is rambling, he never talks without purpose, and yet here he is unable to focus on any one aspect to ground himself with.

Grantaire dropping the cigarette and stubbing it out beneath his heel silences him.

Grantaire’s nod is fractional but it’s there, and then he smiles. It shows his teeth and Enjolras steps forward. There is no possible reason for the two of them to work, together or apart, but he’s happy, embarrassed and nervous, but happy.

This time when Enjolras moves he’s got a destination in mind and then he’s standing in front of Grantaire, too far into his personal space, and he isn’t sure what he wants to do, but Grantaire doesn’t flinch.

Grantaire’s skin is rough beneath his palms, but it doesn’t matter because it is _beneath his palms_ and he’s feeling the warmth come off Grantaire’s skin and the pigmentation and fragmentation that makes him who he is, and ah, it is Grantaire who kisses him. Grantaire who goes on tiptoe before Enjolras can think to bend down to greet him, and Grantaire who presses thin, chapped lips against his own.

Enjolras keeps his hands on Grantaire’s face.

No one interrupts them, but they’ve been seen, kissing next to a window has obvious voyeuristic outcomes, and there are delighted smiles and sarcastic applause when they return inside, flushed from the cold and from something else.

And Grantaire is still not what society would deem attractive, but smiling and biting his lip and holding Enjolras’ hand under the table, and happy. Love does not make him beautiful. Love brings out the truth of who he is. And that is not beautiful. But it is Grantaire.

And then it is later still, the night outside Cosette and Marius’ lace curtains old and unwelcoming in contrast to the comfort to be found within the flat.

Marius and Cosette have an imitation fire lighting and warming up the bundled friends.

There’s a film playing on the television, all dramatic cinematography and intense muted dialogue popping up along the bottom of the screen in subtitles. Very few of them are watching the film from where they’ve ended up piled up on sofas and chairs and tucked into cushions on the floor.

Through a combination of nudges and a hand tucked into his own, Enjorlas and Grantaire find themselves alone on the loveseat that Cosette and Marius normally share. This evening however, Marius has been forced between Joly, Jehan and Feuilly for unknown purposes, but Marius is blushing scarlet, and Cosette, Éponine, Combeferre, Musichetta and Bahorel have dragged out the duvet to paint their nails on as the film marathon goes on.

Enjolras is content to lean against Grantaire’s shoulder, halfway to sleep. It has been an emotionally unsettling evening, and even as he settles himself now, having the grounding of Grantaire’s breathing beneath him is a comfort he didn’t know he was lacking.

Courfeyrac gently ribs Grantaire by making kissing noises in their direction, and Enjolras isn’t above flipping him off. But he’s tired, and Grantaire is warm and he hadn’t realised the pleasure of being content until now. Enjolras trips his head up against Grantaire’s neck, pressing his lips against the cauliflower of his ear before sinking back to nuzzle once against the discoloured skin of his neck before settling in to watch the film. With his eyes closed. And perhaps to sleep.

“You are so beautiful.”

Grantaire whispers into Enjolras’ hair, like a secret. And he tightens his grip across his shoulders, as though he expects Enjolras to get up and walk away, Enjolras relaxes further, thinking that the emotional comfort of an immovable deadweight would surely surpass the physical one of Enjolras pressed against Grantaire.

Courfeyrac hmms, not unkindly, as though he knew that the words were not designed for him.

Enjolras isn’t even sure whether the words are designed for him, or to be something as equally tangible as the feel of Grantaire under his fingers.

Enjolras nuzzles into Grantaire’s grip again.

Grantaire values actions, and Enjolras values Grantaire, so he smiles, and says nothing in reply.

**Author's Note:**

> (I mean hopefully I fooled you into thinking that with the title the ‘extraordinary’ was Enjolras and the ‘commonplace’ Grantaire, but actually Enjolras’ ardent imagination wishes for the extraordinary. Of course, the comparisons stop there, and 120 Days of Sodom has no more narrative connection. As you’ll by know.)
> 
> There's also an author commentary available for this fic, if anyone is interested in that.


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